George Will Indicates He Is Unlike Edmund Burke, I.e., Not A Populist

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

[From article]
Today we are being treated to the sight of conservative George Will of the Washington Post, denouncing Donald Trump to the bitter end. Mr. Will is the WaPo's nod to Madisonian democracy, which feels safe enough to the lefties of the WaPo – because who is going to bring James Madison back to life today?
Mr. Will is there like a gold ormulu clock on the mantelpiece, to show the intellectual diversity of the WaPo. He writes and speaks in whole sentences, but secretly, my hero George Will is a member of the Whig Party, the founding elite of the United States.
Now, I admire Mr. Will as one kind of true conservative, believe it or not. But he is not a Burkean conservative, because Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was actually a populist intellectual.
Burke believed in the intuitive wisdom and good sense of ordinary people. I'm afraid that Mr. Will sneers at popular conservatives because they are...well, popular. Like GOP winner Donald Trump, who talks the earthy language of Queens, New York.


Donald Trump

Trump is attractive to voters who are sick and tired of being preached at and lied to by our mis-educated elites. Trump is not as intellectual as Ted Cruz. Intellectuals are good for Supreme Court justices, and Cruz knows his constitutional law.
But Trump understands and likes people, which is not the same thing.
Conservatives have long been divided between intuitive people and intellectuals. Thomas Jefferson was an intellectual. Andrew Jackson was an intuitive conservative.
Abe Lincoln was a very rare politician who had a liking and appreciation for everyday people but could still make eloquent speeches that educated Americans could love. Ben Franklin was also able to bridge popularity and intellect. But Alexander Hamilton famously said, "The People? Sir, the People is a Great Beast!"
In some way George Will is more of a Hamiltonian. Nothing wrong with that, but Mr. Will consistently fails to understand the Donald Trumps of this world. Ronald Reagan and Harry Truman had sound intuitions about people. Woodrow Wilson was an intellectual.
In truth, Trump understands sophisticated ideas also, and he can talk in complete sentences. We can see that as he is making his "pivot" to more conventional politics. But Mr. Trump loves to outrage the Hamiltonians in Washington, D.C., who are still freaked out by the prospect of a practical person getting a chance.
Burke was an Irishman who served in the British Parliament, a life history that might explain his hatred for tyranny and his love and respect for human intuition. Ireland in his time was miserably poor, generally uneducated, and badly exploited by English landlords, but still rich in human talent. Burke empathized with the poor and powerless, but he also admired the decency and good sense of most people.



In Burke's time, throngs of impoverished Irish fled to Britain, America, Australia, India and New Zealand, which is why so many American politicians have Irish roots.
Burke supported the American Revolution, because he saw the Constitution as an extension of British rights and freedoms, earned over the centuries in power struggles against tyrants. But the key to Burke was his faith in the good judgment of everyday people.
That's what he wrote about in his most famous paragraph, comparing the grasshoppers of the chattering classes to the mass of ordinary people, "reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak."
His advice was not to pay much attention to screaming headlines, but to put your trust in the intuitive good sense of the people.
Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.
Trump is a practical man. George Will is a classic intellectual. They don't need to fight each other, because a viable world needs both kinds of people.
But maybe it's time for conservative intellectuals to stop sulking and get with the program. Worse things than Trump have happened to this country – like the last seven years of Obama, or (heaven forefend!) the next eight years of Hillary.
Today we have a choice, not an echo.
You may not love the choice, but consider the alternative.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/george_will_takes_on_edmund_burke.html

May 6, 2016
George Will Takes On Edmund Burke
By James Lewis

Donald Trump Violates William F. Buckley's Principles

[From article]
He won also in spite of South Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Thurmond siphoning off Democratic votes (and 39 electoral votes) as a Dixiecrat protesting civil rights commitments in the Democratic Party’s platform. Truman won because he kept his party and himself from seeming incoherent and boneless.
[Truman was President after Roosevelt died in office in 1945. He was elected for the first time in 1948. He did not run in 1952.]
[. . .]
So, the Republican National Committee should immediately stipulate that subsequent Republican debates will be open to any and all — but only — candidates who pledge to support the party’s nominee.
[. . .]
So, conservatives today should deal with Trump with the firmness Buckley dealt with the John Birch Society in 1962. The society was an extension of a loony businessman who said Dwight Eisenhower was “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” In a 5,000-word National Review “excoriation” (Buckley’s word), he excommunicated the society from the conservative movement.
Buckley received an approving letter from a subscriber who said, “You have once again given a voice to the conscience of conservatism.” The letter was signed, “Ronald Reagan, Pacific Palisades, Cal.”
George Will is a syndicated columnist. In the interest of full disclosure he wanted readers to know that his wife, Mari Will, works for Scott Walker.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/opinion/op_ed/2015/08/will_donald_trump_s_a_counterfeit_republican

Will: Donald Trump’s a counterfeit Republican
Thursday, August 13, 2015
By: George F. Will
Boston Herald

Substantial Threats to First Amendment

Top George Will, left, andCondoleeza Rice
Bottom Ayaan Hirsi Ali, left, and Bill Maher

[From article]
Speaking at the event was George Will, the Washington Post columnist whose invitation to speak to California’s Scripps College was rescinded last year. Will said that the First Amendment has never been in more danger.
“Free speech has never been, in the history of our Republic, more comprehensively, aggressively, and dangerously threatened than it is now,” said Will in the event’s keynote address.
Will said that the current assault on free speech is more dangerous than incidents in the past such as the Alien and Sedition Acts that were rooted in local conditions that were bound to disappear.
“Today’s attack is different, Its an attack on the theory of freedom of speech,” said Will. “[There is a] belief that the First Amendment is a mistake and that the real right people have regarding speech is the right to avoid speech…It is an attack on the desirability of free speech.”
Will also warned that there has never been more “intellectual ingenuity devoted towards rationalizing the disappearance of the First Amendment.”
On many campuses, free speech can only occur in “free speech zones”—at Texas Tech that zone happens to be limited to just a 20 foot wide “free speech gazebo.”
At the University of California, Irvine, students recently voted to no longer hang the American flag because it “conflicted with their mission to promote student safety.”
This decision is part of what Will calls the “infantilization of American young people,” and the belief by administrations that they are responsible for maintaining campuses where students are free from any “disturbances to their serenity.”
At Brown University, for example, the response to a critic of the “rape culture” term speaking on its campus was not to disinvite the speaker but rather to “prepare for the terror,” said Will. A “safe space”—equipped with cookies, pillows, blankets, coloring books, calming music, and videos of frolicking puppies—was established for students who needed to “recuperate.”

http://freebeacon.com/culture/celebrating-the-disinvited/

George Will: Free speech never more ‘dangerously threatened than it is now’
BY: Brent Scher Follow @brentscher
April 17, 2015 11:20 am

Charles Dickens, George Will On Trusting Government

[From article]
Will replied that we have “much more to fear from excessive faith in government than from too little faith in government.” He got right to the point.
The distilled essence of progressivism is that government is a benign -- that is disinterested force, that's false. And, (b), it is stocked with experts who are really gifted at doing things.
[. . .]
The Barnacles are the folks that have fixed themselves on the government teat. Whether they are lifer bureaucrats counting the days till they can retire on that government pension or single mothers on welfare or crony capitalists sucking up green subsidies, they have to believe in government. Otherwise they'd have to get a life. Then there's the liberal professor at a government university, or the diversity dean, or the trainers teaching men not to rape. Of course they all believe in government. They are Barnacles; they have to fix themselves to a host.
[. . .]
we know who human Stiltstockings are. George Will does too. They are the folks dreaming up all the stupid stuff so they can strut around on stilts.
It's fine-tuning the curriculum of our students K through 12. It's monitoring sex on campuses. It's deciding how much ethanol we should put in our gas tanks. It has designed our light bulbs and it's worried sick over the name of the Washington football team.
[. . .]
But liberals are liars and, worst of all, they are lying to themselves. Governments are not there to be trusted. They are simply armed insurgents occupying territory by force and taxing the inhabitants so they can reward their supporters. Governments naturally, by instinct, defend their territory against invaders and against domestic troublemakers. Some governments allow the rule of law to flourish, recognizing that settled law enables their subjects to create wealth that increases government revenue and increases government power. But mostly governments just like ordering people around while they totter around on their silly stilts. Because all power corrupts.
[. . .]
The whole point of the modern social sciences are to help government understand people so as to control them. America's psychology professionals are Barnacles and Stiltstockings. They trust government – to provide them a living and give their lives meaning.
[. . .]
Because government is the name for things the ruling class does by force.

http://americanthinker.com/2014/10/trust_in_government_is_pathological.html

October 7, 2014
Trust in Government is Pathological
By Christopher Chantrill

Both Parties and George Will Mislead Americans About Human Trafficking Law

[From article]

But the law’s definition of “unaccompanied alien child” limits the hearings to kids who have no relatives in the United States. If your relatives live here, the law assumes you’re not being sex-trafficked — you’re trying to join them.Here’s the definition — note subsection (C):”(g) Definitions
“(2) the term ‘unaccompanied alien child’ means a child who –
(A) has no lawful immigration status in the United States;
(B) has not attained 18 years of age; and
(C) with respect to whom –
(i) there is no parent or legal guardian in the United States; or (ii) no parent or legal guardian in the United States is available to provide care and physical custody.”
The law is not — as George Will suggested on “Fox News Sunday” — a general humanitarian mandate allowing all 2 billion poor children of the world to show up at our border and be told, “Welcome to America!” It’s a law to combat sex trafficking.

http://humanevents.com/2014/07/30/the-loophole-is-obama/

THE LOOPHOLE IS OBAMA
By: Ann Coulter
7/30/2014 03:02 PM

Bill Maher Opens Himself to Ridcule

[Link to other article on same subject embedded]

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/gopelka/2010/05/05/beyond-the-schadenfreude-what-the-george-will-crucifixion-of-bill-maher-really-means/

Beyond Schadenfreude: What George Will’s Crucifixion of Bill Maher Really Means

by Gregg Opelka
BigHollywood.com
May 5, 2010